Question Six. Whether an Angel can move himself

439. Whether an angel can move himself [d.1 interpolation to n.296].

440. That he cannot:

Because nothing can be in act and in potency at the same time in the same respect; but the mover, insofar as it is mover, is in act, and, according as it is moved, it is in potency; therefore it does not move itself.

441. The reason is confirmed by the fact that some of the divisions of being - as quantity and substance - are incompossible in some one and the same thing; therefore, by parity of reason, act and potency are incompossible in any one thing.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A]. The consequence is plain, because if divisions of being more remote from being are incompossible, much more are also the immediate divisions.

442. Again, everything that moves itself is divided into two parts, one of which is mover first and the other moved first, from Physics 8.5.257b12-13. There is also proof from the first conclusion in Physics 7.1.241b33-242a15, that ‘nothing moves itself first, because then it would rest on the resting of a part and would not rest on the resting of it’, which proof holds about a moved body; and from this there follows that in any selfmoving body such a distinction exists, and from this there seems to follow universally that in any self-mover such a distinction exists (for there seems to be the same incompossibility in the same non-body moving itself first as in the same body moving itself first). But an angel is not divided into two parts, one of which is mover first and the other moved first; therefore etc.

443. On the contrary:

An angel can be moved locally (from the preceding question, n.310), and not by a body as efficient cause (as it seems), nor only miraculously by God; therefore he is moved by himself.

I. To the Question

A. Scotus’ own Response

444. I concede that an angel can be moved locally by himself, because in the case of anything that has a passive potency for acquiring or possessing something through motion, it is not a mark of imperfection but of perfection in it that it has an active potency whereby to acquire it. - The point is apparent from animate things, that they have been given an active power with respect to the perfect size that they are, when generated, in potency to; it is also plain in heavy and light things, which have an active potency for the ‘where’ of which they are naturally receptive; likewise, animals have an active potency with respect to the sensation to which they are in passive potency (however, as was made clear in 1 d.3 n.547, they cannot have it in its totality, because a power cannot have all the objects that, namely, are consubstantial with it). Therefore, since there is in an angel a potency for a ‘where’ that he can acquire by motion, it is not a mark of imperfection in him that he have an active power with respect to the same ‘where’; rather it seems to be an imperfection in him if he not have such active power, because there is no repugnance in other less perfect beings having such an active power.

B. Instance

445. And if it be said that this belongs to more imperfect things (as animals) only according to a part of them, because they can be divided into two (namely into mover and moved), but if it be said that what is assumed about heavy and light things [sc. that they have an active power, n.444] is false and against the Philosopher’s intention (as it seems) in Physics 8.4.255a4-18, where he seems to give four reasons specifically against it (first by the fact that a heavy thing is not an animal, second by the fact that it cannot stop itself, third that it cannot move itself with diverse motions, fourth that it is continuous, that is, of the same kind in a part and in the whole, and such a thing cannot move itself), and in solving the question he says that ‘natural things have only a principle of undergoing with respect to motion and not a principle of acting’ - I show the opposite, first from authorities and second through reasons.

C. Rejection of the Instance

446. [From authorities] - The first authority is Aristotle Physics 8.4.255b19-31, where, in solving the doubt about heavy and light things, he says that ‘potency is said in many ways, hence it is not evident what a heavy thing is moved by’. Now he distinguishes ‘potency’ into potency for first act and potency for second act (as is plain about potency for knowledge and potency for actual consideration of knowledge), and when applying it to the issue at hand he says that ‘fire is in essential potency to becoming cold, namely insofar as water is generated from it - but when water has been generated, it is in accidental potency to making something cold, unless it be impeded’.

447. Thus too does he himself say about the heavy and light [Physics 8.4.255b8-12]: “For the light comes from the heavy, as water from air; but when it is already light it will at once operate, unless it is prohibited; now the act of a light thing is to be somewhere and to be upwards, but it is prevented when the contrary is present in it.”

Here there is no validity to the exposition that, since it is actually light, it is actually light such that going upwards is the feature of light, because then to say that ‘it is actually light’ is the same as to say ‘because it is actually light, it goes upwards’, which is nothing other than a causal statement. For he says that ‘it will at once operate, unless it is prohibited’, which cannot be understood of the actually light in first act, because the act of a light thing in this way cannot be prohibited or prevented while it is actually such. Likewise, he says that ‘it is prohibited when it is in the contrary place’; but a light thing is not non-light ‘because it is in a contrary place’. Therefore he means this of second act, namely that ‘its act is to be somewhere’ - that is, that its act, which is upwardness, is its operation. Therefore, just as fire when it has heat as first act is truly and effectively disposed toward heating (which is second operation), so also fire actually existing light is effectively disposed to being upwards, or to the second operation whereby it exists upwards.

448. The same in Physics 4.9.217b16-18 about the vacuum, for he says that ‘two contraries accompany the dense and the rare, namely the heavy and light and the hard and soft’ - and when speaking of the contrariety of the heavy and light he says that “according to this contrariety they will be active in motion, but according to hard and soft they will be passive.” Therefore etc.

449. And if you say that that is not his intention (although the words sound that way), because when, in On Generation 2.2.329b18-22, he enumerates the active qualities, he excludes the heavy and light from qualities that are truly active and passive - I reply:

I say that by what he says in On Generation 2 he would contradict himself in Physics 8 [n.445] if he did not understand the matter there differently from here; for in Physics 8 he says, the way it is cited on their behalf, that ‘natural things have a principle not of acting but of undergoing’ - but in On Generation 2 he says that “heavy and light are neither active nor passive,” and his proof there is plain.

450. Therefore he is speaking in one way about action and passion in Physics 8 and where discussion about action and passion occurs, and in another way in On Generation 2 and where discussion about generation occurs; for just as in the Physics he is speaking in general and universally about motion while in On Generation he is speaking about motion toward form, so too in Physics 3 he is speaking of action and passion in general and universally - and thus what he says in Physics 8 is true, that ‘they have a principle of undergoing’, namely with respect to local motion; but in the book On Generation he is speaking of action toward form where agent and patient are contraries (which indeed is true of univocal actiona), and these are equivocal at the beginning, and at the end are alike with univocal likeness (in equivocal action the agent is alike in form to the produced thing with equivocal likeness, as he himself concedes in On Generation 1.7.324a34-b1, that some agent does not communicate with the thing that undergoes, as neither does medicine with the healed body).

a.a [Interpolation] wherein agent and patient are dissimilar and contrary at the beginning and similar at the end.

451. Now in this way [sc. by understanding action as motion toward form] he denies in On Generation 2 that heavy and light things are principles of acting or doing and also of undergoing - and this is what the wording of his reason expressly says, that they are ‘not principles of acting on other things nor of suffering from other things’; and therefore they are not principles of producing something according to some substantial form (and of this producing he is there speaking), nor are they principles of suffering from some agent correspondent to such action. But they are passive principles in some way with respect to local motion to a ‘where’, and in some way active principles with respect to the same - both of which he himself expressly says in Physics 8, that they are passive in that ‘natural things have in themselves a principle of undergoing’ [n.445], and that they are active in that he said the operation of a light thing is ‘to be somewhere’ [n.447], as the operation of a knower is to consider [n.446].

452. The authority of the Commentator, On the Heaven 3 Com.28, could also be adduced for this purpose: “In the case of simples,” he says, “mover and moved are the same in idea but different in manner; for a stone moves itself insofar as it is actually heavy, and it is moved insofar as it is potentially in a lower place; for it is found in one way to be actual and in another way to be potential - and the cause of this is that it is composed of matter and form.” But he seems to speak of this variously, for in the same place he seems to mean that a stone ‘moves itself per accidens, by pushing the medium in which it is, as a sailor moves himself by moving the ship on which he is’ - and for this reason his authorities are not much to be relied on.

453. [From reasons] - There are reasons for this conclusion.

The first is of the following sort: every effect has, when it is actually caused, an actual cause (this is plain from Aristotle Physics 2.3.195b17-20 and Metaphysics 5.2.1014a21-23, the chapter on cause: ‘The efficient cause in act and the caused in act are and are not at the same time’; it is also plain - if there were no authority - from manifest reason, because what is not, when it is not, does not bring anything into being); therefore when the descent of a heavy thing is actual, then there is something actually causing it.

454. But this descent is not actual from something that removes an impediment. Nor consequently is it the heavy thing’s relation downwards, ‘because what impels it moves it per se downwards’, for in this respect the heavy thing is as it were the remover of an impediment - and such a mover, according to the Philosopher in Physics 8.4.255b24-27, is as it were a per accidens mover; and there must, in addition to a per accidens mover, be a per se efficient cause, because everything per accidens has to be reduced to something per se.

455. Nor can this per se cause be the center pulling it, because if per impossibile there were nothing heavy in the center but the whole earth were removed from it (and the center remained, as before, under the relation of being the center), the heavy thing would still tend naturally to the center. - What then is pulling it? Is it the ‘where’? Manifestly not because the ‘where’ is not an active form.

456. Nor too is it the influence of the heaven, because to have recourse to a universal cause seems a subterfuge - it is to deny particular effects and particular causes; also the influence of the heaven (as far as concerns itself) is uniform in the whole medium, so there is no reason for it to move one part upwards in the whole medium and another part downwards unless a particular determining agent is posited.

457. Nor can the ‘actual mover’ (when it is actually moving) be posited to be the actual moved heavy thing, because nothing univocally moves itself toward what it possesses - and for this reason motion is something extrinsic to the heavy thing; nor can what generates the heavy thing be the actual mover, because it can at that point not be.Tr. The generator of a heavy thing need no longer exist when the heavy thing is actually in motion downwards, so that the generator cannot be the actual mover of it at that time. ³⁸ Therefore it must be something intrinsic.a

a.a [Interpolation] to the heavy thing, or it must be the heavy thing through something intrinsic to it.

458. It is said that the generator [of the heavy thing] remains virtually in the heavy thing, and that in this way it moves the heavy thing [cf. 1 d.17 n.89]. - On the contrary: it does not remain virtually save as a cause remains in its effect, and what remains thus does not remain in itself but only because it remains in its effect - and then its virtue in respect of the motion pertains to the genus of efficient causality. For if the generator is said to bring something about, and if it does not bring anything about save as it is in act, it must needs bring something about because it brings about what is virtually the efficient cause, and in this way the proposed conclusion still follows.a

a.a [Interpolation from Appendix A] Again, if the generator remains virtually in the heavy thing, then either in its own virtue and or in that of its effect, because acting presupposes being. If it remains only by virtue of its effect, namely the heavy thing, and it is thereby cause of the motion of the heavy thing, then the heavy thing moves itself.

459. Besides, what does not move another save by being first naturally moved by something else [e.g. as a stick does not move a stone save by being first moved by the hand] gets from the same thing the fact that it moves and that it is moved; but a heavy thing that has a light thing tied to it (and whose lightness is not greater than the heavy thing’s heaviness) moves that same light thing by drawing it with itself toward the center - and it only moves because it is moved; therefore it is moved naturally first before it moves. And it is moved by the same thing as that which is tied to it is moved by; but it moves what is tied to it by something else, namely by its heaviness; therefore it moves itself in the same way.

460. A confirmation can be given for this reasoning because, when something has active power with respect to some form, it can cause that form in any passive thing proportioned and proximate to it; but a heavy thing has active power with respect to a ‘where’ downward, just as it does with respect to what it pulls along with it, and it itself -when it is outside the place downward - is receptive of that form, which it lacks, and it is proportionate and proximate to itself; therefore it can cause that form in itself.

461. This can also be sufficiently plain if one considers that rest requires a cause actually causing it just as motion does; for then one should posit a cause naturally causing coevally with a heavy thing the rest of the heavy thing; but there is no such cause causing rest coevally with the heavy thing save the heavy thing, and so the heavy thing is causing with efficient causality - and so it is causing the motion toward that rest, because these two [sc. motion and rest] are from the same cause.

462. Further, a heavy thing - when prevented from moving - removes what is preventing it if its heaviness is superior to the virtue of the impeding or resisting thing; to wit, if it is placed on something continuous [e.g. a wooden plank] and its heaviness is superior to the nature of the continuity, it breaks it and by thus getting rid of the continuity it gets rid of what impedes its going downward. Now this breaking, since it is a forced motion, must have some existing extrinsic cause for it, and to suppose there is any cause other than the heavy thing itself does not seem rational; but the heavy thing does not break the continuous object save because it aims to put itself in the center; therefore it has the putting of itself in the center from the same principle as that from which it has the removing of the impediment.

463. This could also be made clear in another way, because the heavier object moves more quickly, and yet the same generator could generate something heavier and something less heavy, and these two could be at the same distance from the center and under the same influence of the heaven; therefore the difference of motions in them is from something intrinsic to them.

464. Again “natural motion becomes more intense at the end,” according to the Philosopher On the Heaven 1.8.277b5-7, and it would be difficult to assign a cause for this if the efficient cause of this motion were precisely something extrinsic.

465 [Response to the statements of Aristotle] - I reply then to Aristotle, who is adduced for the contrary view [n.445], that he is in my favor (the way I have adduced him [nn.446-448]) - that the heavy thing does effectively move itself, as a knower moves himself effectively to an act of thinking. And I understand this as follows: just as a thing that has a form, which is of a nature to be the principle of some univocal action, can act by that form on what is receptive of the form and proportioned and proximate to it, so too a thing that has a form, which is of a nature to be the principle of some equivocal action, can by it act on what undergoes and is proximate to it; and if the thing itself is receptive of the equivocal action or equivocal effect and lacks it, then it will, by the fact it is itself most proportioned and proximate to itself, not only be able to cause this effect in itself but will supremely cause it. So also is it in the case of the issue at hand, that a stone which is up above is in potency to a ‘where’ down below, but heaviness with respect to that ‘where’ is an active equivocal principle, just as there is only need universally with respect to a ‘where’ to posit an equivocal principle (for a mover moves a movable to a ‘where’ not because the mover is formally in act with respect to that ‘where’, but merely because it is virtually so). Therefore, because the heavy thing is itself receptive of the equivocal effect and lacks it, so it causes that effect in itself first, and causes it in no other thing save by causing it first in itself, such that its causing it is the operation of the heavy thing - as Aristotle says [Physics 8.5.257b9] - the way heating is the operation of a hot thing. But the fact that it causes the effect in itself is accidental to it insofar as it is active (because it is itself receptive with respect to this causing, or with respect to this causability); this could be understood if the heavy thing - while remaining up above -could propel itself, or something else, to the center; no one in that case would then doubt how a heavy object is the principle of descent in something else; and it is not less an active cause now of its own descent.

466. However, because of what the Philosopher says [n.445, that natural things have, in respect of motion, only a principle of receiving and not of acting], I add further that this motion is ‘natural in itself’ not by the fact that it has an active principle in itself, but only by the fact that the movable thing has an intrinsic passive principle naturally inclining it to motion. - This is plain from the definition of nature in Physics 2.1.192b20-23, that it is “a principle of motion in that in which it is per se and not per accidens” (for nothing is a principle of moving for anything save insofar as it is per se in that which is moved; but it is not per se and first in anything that is moved save insofar as it is passive; therefore it is not anything by nature nor a natural principle of anything save because it is a passive principle in the thing moved). This is plain because something is naturally moved for this reason, that it is moved as it is of a nature to be moved.

467. Thus it is in the case of the issue at hand, so that, although here (as in the case of many other things) an active principle is the principle of moving, yet not because of that active principle of moving is it moved naturally, but because of the passive principle because of which it is thus moved. And this is what the Philosopher subjoins (after he has said that “the act of a light thing is to be somewhere, upwards” [n.447]): “And yet,” he says [Physics 8.4.255b13-15], “the question is raised why they [sc. light and heavy things] are moved to their places.” And he says pointedly ‘to their places’, that is, that they are naturally moved to those places, “because they are of a nature to be there,” that is, they have a natural inclination to that ‘where’. And in this way he adds afterwards that “they have only a principle of undergoing and not of doing” [n.445], namely in respect of motion insofar as it is natural - and so, in this solution of this doubt about the motion of heavy things, he says there by the by of the natural principle of this motion, and of the efficient principle of it, that it is only passive.

468. Now Aristotle’s reasons [n.445] do not conclude against me, for the first three (which have the same force) show that the heavy object does not move itself the way what acts by thought moves itself; for an animal could not move itself short of the intended ultimate end - nor even could it direct itself or stop itself - unless it acted by knowledge. And from this is got the Philosopher’s proposed conclusion, that these things [sc. heavy and light things] are not movers first [sc. do not move themselves] - for a first mover moves by knowledge (because “to guide is the mark of the wise man” [Metaphysics 1.2.982a17-18]), as was shown in the third distinction of the first book about the knowledge of God, and in the second distinction of the same book about the being of God [1 d.3 nn.261-268, d.2 nn.76-78].

469. Also, his fourth reason [n. 445] does not draw its conclusion about the continuous precisely as the continuous is some quantum. But it proves it relative to the continuous - namely because the continuous has the same disposition in every part of itself - that a heavy object does not move itself effectively, because there is not one part of it in act able to make another part of it to be in act according to the same quality, in the way he himself states in On Sense and the Sensed Thing [6.447a3-4; n.299 above]. And I concede that in this way an actually existing part of the heavy object does not cause motion to be in another part; but the whole heavy object is in act according to first act, and it causes in itself second act.

470. But if you object, ‘how will Aristotle, if he concede that a heavy object is thus moved effectively by itself (although not by knowledge, nor even because its naturalness is from it insofar as it has an active principle) - how will he get his principal conclusion, that these things [heavy and light things] are necessarily moved by another -which is something he intends principally to prove [n.445]?’ - I say that he gets this conclusion sufficiently from a distinction of power [n.446]. For these things [sc. heavy and light things] do not reduce themselves from second potency [sc. accidental potency, n.446] to act unless they have first been reduced from first potency [sc. essential potency, n.446] to first act, or at least could be reduced to first act; and I assert this of all the elements, which are all - according to him - ungenerable and incorruptible, and yet, because they are of the same nature as their parts are, it is not repugnant for them to be reduced from first potency to first act in just the way their parts are reduced. So it follows that, although the heavy and light thing move themselves from second potency to second act, yet a movable thing is, or is moved, from first potency to first act by something else outside it; for it is not necessary that ‘if everything that is moved is moved by another’, that it is moved by another in the case of every motion - and the first point [sc. everything that is moved is moved by another] is enough for the Philosopher, because thereby deduction is made to something ‘other than all these things’, which something other cannot be moved by another either in one motion or in any motion but it is altogether ‘an unmovable mover’ [Physics 8.5.256a13-258b9].

471. It can also similarly be said that even if heavy and light things are - in the case of this motion - moved effectively by themselves, yet they are not moved as they are by first movers; from the fact too that they do not move by knowledge, the consequence follows that they presuppose something that does move thus by knowledge - and so, although they do effectively move themselves yet they do not do so without being moved by another, although not as they are by a proximate cause.

II. To the Principal Arguments

472. As to the first principal argument [n.440], it was stated in distinction 3 of the first book [1 d.3 nn.513-517] how something can act on itself, and response was made there to this first principal argument.

473. But as to what is added in confirmation, that ‘some of the divisions of being are not compossible in anything, so these divisions are not compossible either’ [n.441] - I concede the point about these divisions [sc. act and potency] as they are opposites. But they are opposites insofar as they state modes of any being, namely insofar as ‘one and the same thing’ is in potency before it is actually a being (or a being in act) when it already is; and in this way these divisions do not belong to any one and the same being, either formally or denominatively, namely that ‘one and the same thing’ should be said to be denominated by something in some act and at the same time by the same thing in potency. However, as act is taken for active principle and potency for passive principle, which principles fall under the essence of any definable or defined thing, then they are in this way neither opposites nor divisions of being nor repugnant to any one and the same thing.

474. As to the second argument [n.442], I say first to the authority from Physics 8, namely that everything ‘that moves by knowledge’ is divided into two, one of which is mover first and the other moved first - and the reason is of this sort, that the motive power of such a mover is an organic power so that it requires not only a distinction between body and soul as between mover and moved, but requires perhaps in the body itself - where the organic power is - a moving part of the body distinct from the moved part. But it need not be like this in the case of something non-organically moving itself, because here the whole is uniform as to first act, and the whole is in potency as to second act.

475. But as to the proof of this proposition, which is taken from the beginning of Physics 7 [n.442], where is proved that ‘nothing moves itself first’ - I say that what ‘first’ means here can be understood in two ways:

In one way it is taken as it means the same as ‘according to the whole’ and is opposed to what ‘according to a part’ means. And Aristotle takes it this way in Physics 5.1.224a21-29, where he distinguishes what it is for a thing to be moved per accidens, or as a whole, and what it is for it to be moved as to a part; Aristotle also takes ‘to be moved first’ in this way in Physics 6.6.236b19-23, where he says that ‘whatever is moved first in some time is moved in any part of that time’ - and he says it frequently elsewhere.

476. In another way what I mean by ‘first’ means precise causality, in the way it is taken in Posterior Analytics 1.4.73b26-33 in the definition of the universal.

477. I say therefore that the reasoning of Aristotle at the beginning of Physics7 [n.442] does well prove that no body is moved by itself first at the same time in this double firstness:

Because if it is moved by itself first, that is, according to the whole of itself, then the motion is present in any part of it. This consequence holds from the fact that a whole, insofar as it is a mover, is homogeneous, and that ‘to be moved’ is a homogeneous passion; but a homogeneous passion is only present first in a whole by this firstness if it is present in any part of it. So the result is that if a whole is moved first in this way, then if a part of it is at rest then the whole of it is at rest.

478. But when taking the other firstness, the firstness of precise causality, if a whole is moved by itself first, then this predicate ‘to be moved’ is not removed from the whole because it is removed from something that is not the whole, nor is it removed from the whole because it is removed from something that is not any part of the whole; for if a triangle has three angles first by this firstness, not only is the predicate ‘having three angles’ not removed from it if it is removed from a quadrilateral, but it is also not removed from it because of its being removed from a part of the triangle, as from this or that angle. Therefore ‘to be moved’ is not removed from a whole in which it is first by this firstness, even if it be removed from a part of it, which part is not it; and therefore if a whole is moved first by this firstness, it does not rest on the resting of a part.

479. But the prior inference was that it is moved first by the other firstness [sc. the firstness of ‘according to the whole’, nn.477, 475]; so it is impossible for a whole to be moved first by both firstnesses at the same time [nn.477-478], because this involves a contradiction, in that a contradiction follows [sc. the contradiction that the whole would both rest and not rest on the resting of a part]. However, some whole can precisely by the one firstness [sc. the firstness of ‘according to the whole’ n.475] be moved by itself first.

480. Now in the issue at hand, I say that a heavy thing is moved by itself first in the prior way of ‘firstness’ [n.475], because it moves and is moved according to any part whatever, and moving and being moved belong to any part whatever - although not first but insofar as any part is in the whole.

481. But does it ever belong to a heavy thing ‘to be moved first downwards’ by the firstness stated in the second way [n.476]?

I say that we can in general speak of the heavy thing’s being moved downwards either as to the being moved that belongs to the whole heavy thing or as to a part of the being moved that belongs to a part of the heavy thing. And I say that just as the whole heavy thing and a part of the heavy thing are homogeneous in heaviness, so the total being moved (which is a total passion of the whole) and the partial being moved (which is a passion of a part) are ‘being moveds’ of the same nature; and just as being moved downwards is naturally - and in general - present first by the firstness of precise causality in a heavy thing generally, so the total being moved is present in the whole heavy thing by a like firstness, and the partial being moved (which is a part of the total being moved) is present in a part of the heavy thing by a like firstness.

482. Therefore the whole homogeneous heavy thing is not moved by itself first such that the ‘being moved’, as being moved is common to the whole and to any part of the whole, is present in it first according to this firstness [sc. the firstness of precise causality], because then being moved would not be removed from the whole even if it were removed from a part; however this is false because of the other firstness [sc. the firstness of ‘according to the whole’], which is necessarily going along with it, if this other firstness is posited in a homogeneous subject with respect to a homogeneous passion.

483. However, the heavy thing is also moved with this motion by the firstness of causality, namely of precise causality - and it is true that this total motion is not removed from the whole heavy thing because it is removed from anything that is not this whole heavy thing; but it is true that a part of this whole heavy thing is not moved by this total motion, and yet not for this reason is this total motion removed from the whole heavy thing.

484. If you object that at least the total motion is removed from the whole heavy thing if partial motion is removed from a part of the heavy thing - so the total motion is not present in the whole by the firstness of precise causality (for if it were thus present, in no way would it be removed from the whole because of the removal of any other predicate from the whole that is not the whole) - I reply:

I say that the whole heavy thing, insofar as it is homogeneous, is made up of like parts (and these parts are prior in some way to the whole itself), so that when these are destroyed in idea of parts the whole does not remain; thus I say that it is not unacceptable for the parts to have their own partial properties and partial motions (and to have them somehow before the whole motion belongs to the whole itself), because even the whole motion is composed of the partial motions of the parts just as the whole heavy thing is composed of parts of the heavy thing. And then I deny the assumed proposition that ‘what belongs to something first (that is, according to precise causality) is not removed from it’ because something which is not the very predicate is removed from something which is not the very subject. For this assumed proposition is universally false when the subject has a prior subject and the property a prior property; for then on the removal of the prior property from the prior subject there follows the removal of the posterior property from the posterior subject.

485. The reasoning of Aristotle, therefore [nn.477, 442], proves precisely that the whole is not moved by itself first, that is, his reasoning proves that ‘to be moved’, which is a homogeneous property, is not present in the homogeneous whole first (that is, first according to precise causality), insofar as the property is taken as homogeneous (that is, as of the same nature) in the whole quantity and in a part of the quantity - because thus it would not be removed from the whole although it were removed from a part; and this is false, because of the firstness of the whole that is entailed here by reason of precise causality. Yet Aristotle’s reasoning does not prove that, speaking about that total motion whose parts are motions of parts and about the firstness of precise causality, the whole cannot be moved by itself first; and compatible with this stands that it is moved first by another firstness (namely the firstness of the whole), taking ‘to be moved’ generally (namely as it belongs to the whole and to any part of the whole), so that in some way one needs to assume a predicate that must be present in the whole with both the latter firstness and the former.